Sunday, June 17, 2018

Ask the jazz drummer GayeLynn
McKinney why it took her so long to record her dad’s music, she says without
hesitation, she was focused on building her music career, and she didn’t want to
do it by exploiting her dad’s reputation. McKinney’s dad, Harold McKinney, was
a nationally renowned jazz pianist, composer, vocalist, and musicologist, and a
towering cultural figure in Detroit responsible for teaching scores of young jazz
musicians at his weekly workshop The Detroit Artist and Jazz Performance Lab.
The pianist left boxes and boxes of his original compositions most of which was
never recorded. McKinney’s daughter over a stellar music career that’s
approaching three-decades has built quite a name for herself. For years, she
has been the soul of the female jazz ensemble Straight Ahead, which achieved
international acclaim and put out a string of hit albums on Atlantic Records. Whenever
notable jazz musicians such as Steve Turre, and Benny Golson hit Detroit and
need a drummer McKinney gets the call. McKinney’s vast musical acumen and
versatile chops has capture the attention of music royalty outside of jazz as
well. McKinney has become the queen of soul, Aretha Franklin’s, go-to drummer.
Five years back, McKinney finally decided it was time to put out her dad’s
music.Last month, the Detroit Music
Factory released “McKinfolk: The New Beginning”. The project took McKinney all
of five years to complete, having staged a series of aggressive crowd-funding
campaigns, and assembled a multi-generational group of Detroit jazz musicians
to perform her dad’s music. There’re 11 selections on the recording, and each
has a different group of musicians playing her dad’s tunes. The album is wondrous,
opening with a snippet of a conversation a nine-year-old McKinney had with her
dad as he sat at the piano working on some music.I Dig Jazz caught up with McKinney recently
to discuss the project, which she did enthusiastically while also reminiscing
about her career, and her encounters with the legendary jazz drummer Max Roach.

When I first talked to you about McKinfolk: The New Beginning, you said
that you got the idea for it from a dream you had about your father and that in the dream he chastised you
because he had all this music, and nobody was doing anything with it,
especially you. Will you talk about that
dream, and how it inspired you to finally do this project?

Well, what's funny about that, I
was on the road with Straight Ahead when I had that dream. I was in St Louis,
and we had done a sound check, and I had
gone back to the room to take a nap, you know, take that little power nap before
showtime. Michelle [McKinney, Harold McKinney’s wife] happened to be on that
same show. She was singing with us. So, I went to sleep, and at this point, this is when the dream took over, but it
was so weird because it felt real because I was still in my hotel room. I heard
a knock at the door, and I looked through the peek hole, and there was this guy
standing there who looked like an aboriginal person, and he had on this white
turban and a white robe. I was like wow this guy is really striking, so I opened
the door apprehensively, and I'm looking at him like, "May I help
you?"

He stood there and didn't say
anything, and while I'm looking at him, my father peaked from behind him
grinning. I was like, “Oh my God Dad”.

He chuckled. Then he looked at the
guy, and the guy stepped aside and motioned for him to come on, that he could
come into my room. So, he came in, and he looked like he was about
forty-something years old, and he was dressed nice. Soon as he came into the room, the smile left his face. By this
time, Michelle was also sitting at the desk in my room. He says, “you got to do
something with this music!”, and I said, “Well I am doing something with this music,
Dad.I'm right here with the girls, and
we're playing music.

He was staring at me and I said, “What
music dad?”, and he was getting ready to tell me and the phone rang and woke me
up. So, I was really upset because I was like, “Oh my God! He was about to tell
me”, so that was it for that dream.

Then three years later, in 2009,
Chris Collins came to me and said, “Hey, we're doing a family-theme at the Detroit Jazz Festival this year. We're going to
celebrate the Jones [Elvin and Thad] Brothers and celebrate some other
brothers, and other families, so why don't you do some of your father's music?

How much
music did he leave behind?

Michelle has been the guardian of
this music and trying to keep it safe, you know. So, when I did that concert
for the Detroit Jazz Festival in 2009, I was like okay, so this is what dad
wants me to do. At that point, that's when I decided on the name McKinfolk,
which I really didn't come up with because dad had this name back in the '90s when I used to play with him. The original
McKinfolk was me, dad, Uncle Raymond, Auntie Carol, and Michelle. Then, the
folk part was, you know, whoever he asked to play on the project.

We had Regina Carter one time
playing with us, and just different people playing with us. So, we always had
these different musicians playing with us. The McKinney’s were the nucleus.
When I got busy with Straight Ahead, I kind of stepped away from the McKinfolk.

So, that made me say, “That's what
I'm going to call this project. This is going to be the rebirth of McKinfolk”
because after dad died McKinfolk passed with him.

This first project and I didn't do any new stuff really. Well, it’s going to be new to some people's
ears, but some other it will not. I decided for this first project to redo some
of the music that he composed in 1973.

There are a couple of songs that have never
been recorded, that he played live sometimes. One of them is called “Nostalgia,”
which Michelle wrote some wonderful lyrics to. The other two was “After the
Sunset,” and “Night Blues,” which “After the Sunset” Regina's playing on it,
and I have Perry Hughes playing on “Night Blues”. Miche Braden is singing both
of those songs because those are the ones she used to do with dad. Michelle
also wrote lyrics to “White and Blue,” which was an instrumental piece that dad
had, and Buddy Budson did the arrangement on “Nostalgia”.

Would
you have ever recorded your father’s music even if you did not have that dream?

That's a very interesting and a
good question. Honestly, in my mind, I
was thinking I want to make my own music. I love my father. I love his music,
but I didn’t want to be given everything. I wanted to make my own way as a
musician. Dad made his way and became this great person, this great and
respected musician. I wanted to make it under my name, too.

Honestly, recording his music
wasn’t on my mind. I was focused on trying to do my thing, so to speak, but
when he did come to me in that dream, that alerted me it was something I needed
to do. Then when Chris came to me about
the festival it became clear that I needed to do something.So, that's why I'm glad that whole thing did
come to fruition because it really was
not on my mind because I was trying to focus on putting GayeLynn McKinney out
there.

What
were some of the challenges that you faced making the project? I know you went
on an aggressive campaign to pay it because it was going to be an expensive
endeavor. You have some heavyweights on it such as James Carter, the late Geri
Allen, and Marcus Belgrave.

Honestly, I did two crowd-share
fundraisers. One was Kickstarter. I started with Kickstarter I did Kickstarter
twice. The first time I didn't succeed because with Kickstarter, you must raise
the entire amount you're trying to get, or you don't get any of it. I must've
been about $2,000 shy of reaching the goal and I didn't get it. So, then I did
it again, and the second time around, I did get it, so that's what got me
started. I did three songs with that first round of money.

Then I went away from Kickstarter
and did Indiegogo because with Indiegogo whatever you raise at the due date you
get to keep. So that was cool because then that got me a couple more songs
done. Now I was about four songs deep with that first batch of money, but then
that money was gone, so I was like, Okay. Well, I'll just keep trucking away.
As I get money, I'll do a song when I can.

The musicians really did work with
me. They weren't charging me some ridiculous or some outlandish price. They
were working with me because they wanted to see the project get done, too. I
don't know if it was for my dad or just out of love for me. I love them for it.
Anyway, then, I said well, it's going to probably take me a long time to do
this project because I knew I wanted Geri Allen on it, especially when I found
out she was living here, and I knew I wanted James Carter on it, and I knew I
wanted Regina on it.

Here's a funny story. You know, I
had tried out for the Kresge fellowship, back in 2009, and I didn't get it, and
I was really upset about it. I was just frustrated. It was a lot of work, and I
was like, I am not doing that again. When 2014 rolled around, that's when I
said I am a spiritually motivated person, and God is always with me.

So, I kept saying to myself,
"I am not doing that again". Suddenly, what started as this little
quiet voice, said, "Well, if you apply again you'll get it". Of
course, I completely ignored that and was like, "Nope. I'm not doing that
again. That was too much work. It was too heartbreaking'. I’m not doing that
again."

So, I just kept going about my
business. Then about two weeks before the deadline, the voice got louder.
"If you apply, you'll get it!" Finally, the last time I kept hearing
that voice, I said out loud, "Okay!" The people in my house was like,
"Who are you talking to?" That
day I sat down and decided to go ahead and do it, and the rest is history.
Sure, enough, I did apply, and I did get it.

That's a nice grant that they give
to deserving artists.

It's a no strings grant, which you
can do what you need to do with it, and it couldn't have come at a better time
because all kind of things were going on, and I needed money for, one of which
was to finish this project. So, with that,
I was able to get the last four songs done. That's when I got Geri Allen, and
during the 2014 Detroit Jazz Festival Kevin Mahogany was in town, and I had
asked him to participate.

I said, "I see you’re going
to be at the festival. Can you sing a song on a project?" He was like,
"Okay. Sure. What do you want me to do?", and I said, "I'm doing
my dad’s music. He said, "Well, you send me music." So, I sent him
the music, but I ended up singing the verses, and he ended up doing this
ridiculously wonderful scat solo on the song. It was cool. I did all that in
2014. Geri and James were on the same song.

So, I was able to go ahead and
finish it up, and then I got another blessing from a guy who’s a musician friend.
He didn't make his money as a musician though. He made his money with an
invention that he made. So, because he loves music and musicians, he built this
ridiculously fabulous studio in the basement
of his house, and he did all the mixing and mastering for me for free.

Who
is this guy?

Well, I don't know if I should say
his name, out loud because I think he loves doing it, but he doesn't want
everybody to know. It's like, if you end up meeting' him, and going' to his
house to do some work, then he'll offer his studio for free.

So that's why when I can, I'll
take a musician friend of mine and say, "Hey, you should come with me and
come over here and meet this guy. Then, in the process of meeting him, if you
express, "Hey, I would like to record one day" or something, he'll
say, "Well, why don't you come over here". That's how he operates,
but he's not trying to publicize that too much.

Yeah. I have a wide array of piano
players because you know dad was a
pianist, so I wanted to not only get the people that had worked with him or
studied under him.Geri, she did a
little studying under him, and Glenn Tucker, who didn't know him, but I wanted
him on the project because he played some stuff that sounded so much like dad.

Glenn has a gift for channeling the masters
like Kenn Cox and Claude Black. Glenn is one of the young jazz musicians who’s
really in tune with the masters.

You’re
right. I love Glenn’s playing, and ironically his birthday is three days after
Dad's.

Were
there any challenges writing new arrangements for your father's music, or
playing them as he initially conceived them? I mean, did he write complicated
arrangements, or was the material uncomplicated and easy for musicians to
stretch out on?

His arrangements were difficult as
they were, and I rearranged more of the rhythmic aspect of them, I didn't do it
on all of them, but on a few of the songs. I just arranged the rhythmic feel of
the song and kept his actual arrangement
the same, but the rhythm was different.

You also got the Detroit Jazz
Factory involved with the project.

Yeah, I did sign a deal with the Detroit
Music Factory, and that was a difficult decision because in some ways it's like am I getting ready to give this
project away. I've been signed to a record label before with Straight Ahead,
and that was not the most pleasant experience, as far as, what we got out of
it. So, I was leery about the signing,
but already it's a better experience than what I had with Atlantic Records, and
probably because Detroit Music Factory isn’t a big, huge label. It's a smaller
label, so I was pretty hands-on with
everything.

Darrell Garrett, who's the A&R
guy for the Detroit Music Factory, we worked well together.

Darrell
is a great music executive. He’s singlehandedly made the Detroit Music Factory a
great entity for Detroit jazz musicians.

Yeah, he's a good guy. I really
like him a lot, and he's the guy that came up with the cover for the CD, which
when he sent it to me, I pretty much broke into tears. Even right now, we're
working well together, so I just feel like it's going to be good. I feel better
about it than when I was going into it.

You said it was a hard decision,
so what made you go with the Detroit Music Factory?

I
put out a record in 2006, but you never heard anything about it, did you?

I have that recording.

Let me put it this way. It went a
little way in Detroit, but outside of Detroit, it didn’t do well. That’s back when
the internet wasn't quite like it is now, and I wasn't quite as internet savvy
either, so I did the best I could trying
to push it through the internet. If I would have had actual promotional dollars
where I could've gotten it on the radio,
gotten it in some magazines, gotten it in in places where lots of people could
hear it, it would have probably done better, but I didn't have promotional
dollars.

What made me decide to go with the
Detroit Music Factory was two things. One, they had expressed interest in it,
and I really like Gretchen [Carthartt-Valade, the owner of Mack Avenue Records]
She really wanted to have the project. Number two, I thought about well,
they'll have more promotional dollars than I have; and if I can be hands on and
if I could stir the project into the places where it needed to be advertised
then us working together could be a good thing, a good fit. So, oh you know we
did some negotiations and stuff, and in the end, I said Okay. This is good. I
can do this. I was still nervous about it, but at that point, I had to have faith.

The
experience has been decidedly different from the experience you had with Atlantic Records.

That’s right.

Do
you believe it’s that way because the folks running the label are Detroiters
and they’re not so much profit driven, and they genuinely want to help the
Detroit jazz musicians get their music out?

They want to profit too, and so do I. We've negotiated a nice deal and so if this record sells, we'll
both make money. So, there is some profit-driven
aspects, but the difference is they're not all about making money and the
artist makes nothing. They're about we’re going to push this project, so we can
all be happy.

And Darrell, I really feel like he
wants to see it succeed as well because it's only going to make the Detroit
Music Factory look good, they’ve had some good projects under Detroit Music
Factory, so the more good projects they have the more that they get put on the
map and get really noticed and known as a company to be reckoned with.

Kind of like Motema. Motema was a
company that I hadn't known too much about, which I met the owner. She's a cool
lady, and she put Gregory Porter on the map.

At Atlantic
were they adamant about how they wanted to deal with a project, and didn't let
you guys have a lot of input?

Yeah. That's the thing. We didn't
have a lot of input over there. They pretty much made all the decisions, and unfortunately, too, we got signed at a time
where there was a lot of transitioning going on. The guy who signed us, he
left. Somebody else came into the picture, then the guy who was head of the
jazz department, he was an older
gentleman, had been there for a long time, since Coltrane and them guys. He had
been there since they were there, and we came in at the tail end of his time,
and he died. Then the jazz department just went crazy behind that and went into
chaos.

Your
dad had a large body of work. Are you going to do more recordings of his music?

I want to. My goal is to take some
of those pieces and have piano players or whoever wants to do some
arrangements, and I'll record the arrangements, you know, just like Buddy Budson
did with “Nostalgia”. That was a piano piece. It had never been a band piece.
It's a piano piece, and he did such a beautiful arrangement of that song. I
would've never thought of that. So that's what I'd like to do is give other
piano players or musicians an opportunity to do some arrangements of his music.
That's kind of like what dad was like too. He liked to hear what other ideas
people would come up with.

Pianist Harold McKinney

What
was it like growing up with Harold? He was such a beloved figure in Detroit and
nationally, too. I mean, all that he did musically, then as a jazz educator. ,
I used to sit in on the sessions that he used to have at SereNgeti Ballroom on Thursday nights. I would
just go in. I was the only non- musician
there, but he would let me sit in and just kind of listen to him teach the
young musicians.

I told this story at the Dirty Dog. I had a
special alarm clock. The alarm clock in my house would be my father. He had
this sonata that he was working on for years. So, I would wake up in the
morning with him working on that sonata. Meantime, my mother, who was, you
know, my mother was an opera singer when she met Dad. She did opera, and she
sang in productions like Carmen, and things like that, and she was a model. So,
she had a little career going on when she met dad. I always say she got sucked into jazz, but
around the house, she would be singing' some opera. So, I would wake up to some
jazz sonata and opera in the morning.

That would be my alarm clock, and
I would get up, and a lot of times, the first thing I would do before well,
especially in the summer and before I started school I’d go straight down the
basement and start practicing the drums. That was normally the first half of my
day would be.Dad would have some kind
of rehearsal over at the house with Marcus [Belgrave] and other jazz musicians.

I would be either watching
rehearsal sitting by drummer George Davidson's feet, right next to him, really
close, which he told me later he was always worried that my nose was going to get
caught up in the hi-hat cymbal because I was sitting' that close. It's just
like I had to be in it with him. I wanted to see what his feet were doing. I wanted to see what his hands were
doing. So, I was doing that, or I would sometimes be upstairs with my mother,
and a huge loud argument would erupt in the basement between dad and Marcus.
I'd be like, oh my God. Mom! They are going to kill each other. She'd say,
"Oh, no honey it'll be alright in a minute", and sure enough a little
while later the music would start back up, but the arguing was really funny because the argument would be about music.

They'd be having this heated
discussion about music. So, that's pretty much what my life was like growing
up. He gave me very valuable tidbits. I remember one day when he had a rehearsal, George Davidson would leave his drums.
He still has that kit too. It was a green sparkling drum kit, a nice kit, and
he would leave it set up. As soon as he would go out that front door and get in
his car and turn the corner, I'd be like whoosh!,
right on those drums.

I would jump on the drums, and one
day I said, "Dad! I'm George
Davidson! , and my father said, "Well that's good, honey, but I want you
to be GayeLynn McKinney". So, I would say, "Okay, I'm GayeLynn
McKinney".

He taught me good tidbits like
don't put myself in a box. He said,
"Learn all styles of music. Learn everything. Learn everything about all styles. Learn country music, learn
everything."

He was like that because, in my
house, he had all kinds of records. I used to sit, and just sit by the stereo and
listen to the records that he had. He had some Temptations. Of course, it was a
mix of mom’s stuff too. He had some Pink Floyd. He had some Beatles.

Because of that, I did expose
myself to different styles of music and
tried to mimic as many of those styles as possible. Boy, he couldn't have been
more right about not putting' myself in a box.

That
was probably the most valuable advice that he gave you.

Absolutely, and I pass it along to
my students too. I tell them Look. You know, I like rap. That's cool to listen
to, but hey, open your mind up. Listen to some other stuff too, because if you
plan to do this as a career, you want to be able to be versatile. You'll work a
whole lot more if you're versatile".

What
attracted you to the drums?

You know, I do not know. My mother
said when she was pregnant with me, that I was busy. My father verified it. He
said because, at night, they would be
sleep, and if she happened to be sleeping up against his back, he would wake up
and feel somebody tapping him. He said a couple times he would wake up and say,
"Gwen! What do you want? What do you
need?", and she wouldn't say a word, and he'd fall back to sleep. A little
while later, he'd feel it again. "Gwen! Why you keep tapping me?"

She's like, she told him,
"That is not me. It's the baby." So, apparently, I was destined to do
this because she said I was always moving around, always just moving. One of
the reasons why she bought me that drum set was because I didn't care what I
had in my hand. I was going to beat on something, on the table, the desk."

She didn't like that part when I
would have my knife and fork, and I'd be going to town on the table.

Finally, when I was two, they
bought me this little drum set, and I remember it was an orange sparkle drum
set. It was really tiny, and it had these
little trashcan cymbals on it. Man, they bought me that, and I was beating' on
that thing every day, all day.

Who were some of your influences?

Well, I had sets of drummers because
like I said dad exposed me to so many kinds of styles. Traditional jazz set
drummers were first and foremost was Max Roach because I was up close and
personal with him. There’s a story you've probably heard before, where this
particular day dad had rehearsal and this tall man came in and I didn't know
him because usually, it was either George
Davidson or somebody I knew. I was like, who is this guy, and when I looked at
his hands, he was carrying a stick bag.

So, he sat down at our dining room
table. You know kids don't have a sense of personal space, so I sat right next
to him, close, right on his shoulder. He looked at me out the corner of his
eye. I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. So, he didn't say nothing
either, and he opened up the stick bag and laid it out on the table, and there
were these red drumsticks in there, and I said, "Ooh!"

He looked at me out the corner of
his eye again, so I mustered up the nerve and tapped him on the shoulder, and I
said, "Hey, can I have those sticks?" Now mind you, I'm 10 at the
time, and I had the nerve to ask this man for his sticks. He chuckled at that
point. He finally broke his silence and chuckled, and he said what are you going
to do with these sticks?"

I said, "Well, I am going to
take them and play with them." He
said, "Oh you want to be a drummer, huh." I said, "Yeah". And
he said, "Okay". He said, "Well I tell you what, I'll give you
these sticks, but you have to listen to me first." He said, "I want you to remember the
melodies of every song". I said, "The Melodies?" My face was all
scrunched up. I said, "Why I got to remember the melodies? I play drums."

He said, "Yeah, I know.
That's all drummers think about is the rhythm. I want you to think about the
melody too, because if you think about the melody, it'll help you learn the
song better, and if you take solos, people will know where you are."

I said, "Oh. Okay".
There was a moment of silence, and I said, "Hey, can I have those
sticks?" He took the sticks out his bag, he said, "Here, girl. Take
these sticks and go on."

What he didn't know was that
message stuck in my head like glue, and I know the melodies of many, many
songs. Like, I'll know the melody before I know the name. Just a footnote to
that story, well two footnotes.

One is, when I got to be 17, this
was about the time that I started reading' about who the major players were in
jazz, and me and my friend was looking' at this book, and it was a picture book
with a little story about each person
because I wasn't one to look at album covers. I just put the music on and
immerse myself in the music. So, I hadn't known who these people were really,
so I started looking' at this book and I'm reading'. I got to this one page,
and I read the story and everything, read a little about him, and I looked at
the picture. I looked at my friend, I said, "Oh my God!"

"This is the guy. "She
said, "What are you talking about?" I said
this is the guy, when I was 10 years old that gave me some drumsticks. She said,
“Quit lying'! That’s not him. He didn't give you those drumsticks. "I
said, "No, I'm telling' you the truth. This guy, Max Roach, gave me some
drumsticks."

And I had no idea, at 10 years
old, who he was. I just knew he was a drummer, and so I was mad then, because I
was like, you mean I had this famous man's drumsticks in my hands, and I didn't
frame them and hang them up on the wall! I played with the sticks until they were toothpicks.

That
was my next question. What did you end up
doing with them, or do you still have the sticks?

No. I played with those sticks
every day, until they were toothpicks. I said to myself, honestly that's
probably what he would've wanted me to do with them anyway, you know, is use
them for what they were supposed to be used for.

So fast forward another 10 years
or by this time Straight Ahead is signed to Atlantic. We ended up opening for
Max Roach, at the State Theater. During sound check, he was standing by the
front looking at us, and I said, "Oh my God! That's him". She's got a
nice picture of Max holding him when he was about one year old, and it was from that day at the State

I walked up to him, and I said,
"You know, I know you don't remember me. We’re talking years ago, and before I could finish, he said, You’re that
little girl took my drumsticks". He said, "You're Harold McKinney's
daughter. You took my drumsticks."

I was in awe. I couldn't believe
that he remembered that, and I managed to tell him, I said, "You know, I
just want you to know that what you told me that day did not go in vain. You
told me to remember the melodies of every song, and to this day I have
hundreds, or maybe a thousand or so, melodies in my head."

So, yeah, back to your original
question. He would be my first and foremost influence as far as national
drummers. George Davidson is a big influence on me too. I told you I used to
sit by his feet. Then after him later came Elvin Jones, and I loved him because
of his use of triplets, and I loved to study him too. I studied him a lot. Then,
of course, I love Art Blakey and Tony
Williams.

Do you think your parents and your dad would
have been disappointed, had you decided to be a doctor, or an architect, or
something other than a musician?

My parents were cool. They would
have been supportive of anything I decided to do, and if I decided not to go
into music, they would've been cool with it, if I was happy.

How
has the jazz scene changed over the course of your career, particularly here in
Detroit? Because it seems like right now there's a wave of these young cats
that are playing, that didn't have the benefit to study with the likes your
dad, Teddy Harris and Donald Walden and some of the other greats who are no
longer with us.

Well, you know the beauty of those
guys is that they passed it to us. As a matter of fact, you know it's funny
because for years I tried to run from teaching, because I'm a performer. I
don't want to teach. I want to perform", but it was almost like it was
always thrown back at me that I was going to have to teach, that there was no
way that I was not going to teach. That is what my father was, and I believe
that's what he intended for me to do as well.

The truth of the matter is, I have
really enjoyed teaching. I love it, especially when I have students that are
serious and work at what they're doing, and work at their craft. I love it! I
have two students now who have done very well for themselves.

Even though they didn't have dad, and Kenn, and Teddy, to study under those
guys passed along to us, we're passing along to them, and we're making them
study those guys. So, they can see where the music came from, so they can know
it's not just us giving these lessons in music and sometimes life. It's these
guys. This is where it came from. Look at this. Look at these guys so you know
where it came from. That's why this crop of musicians that are coming' up now,
a lot of them have that same diligence
and are really serious about what they're doing.

Now, I will say this though. We're
a whole lot nicer than my dad, Teddy,
Donald, and Kenn were. They were very serious. You could not be slacking and half doing stuff because they would let you
have it. Nowadays, kids are a little different. They're a little more
sensitive, so you must be a little different in your approach to how you get
them to do something. At times, I wish that they would've been able to meet dad.